Monthly Archives: September 2016

The September Fed meeting issued few surprises; fed funds were not hiked, as was telegraphed by the Brainard speech. While the Fed maintained interest rates, in the press conference, Yellen once again, found a way to interject incremental dovishness, driving interest rates lower, and asset prices up. The playbook of the Yellen Fed for the past 3-years continues. The new focus of the Fed revolves around finally acknowledging that the Philips Curve is a rubbish inflation model, and that more slack exists in the labor market, and the economy, than previously believed, hindering an acceleration in inflation pressures. Cynics will observe that this new found slack wasn’t focused on by hawkish Fed Governors, up until September 10th, when talk of two hikes this year were still be floated. The...

VIX back to the 15 range ahead of a consequential Fed meeting, deep into the economic cycle. Volatility crush continues into actual central bank announcements. Zombie US markets can’t go down but can’t rally either. After recent, underwhelming ECB announcements, markets sense more to come from the Fed, yet a gasping sense reigns omnipresent. What, actually, can the Fed do? After a litany of hawkish babble, commentary, from Fed governors this month, indicating the potential for two rate hikes. Can the expectation fall all the way to zero hikes in 2016? Just on an employment report that missed by 20,000 jobs? It seems that getting expectations down to no hikes in 2016 is the only way to deliver a “dovish surprise”. In this context, market action will be difficult to predict at 2:00...

Last week, a Fed Governor, made comments hitting Bloomberg, that the Fed was not a handmaiden to the markets. The comments, not part of a major speech, and difficult to find on Google, were striking, and provocative, conjuring memories of a period when this would never need to be said. Today’s baffling Fed communication strategy involves speeches of voting members, non-voting members, incorporates guidance, including some guidance that makes its way to the cover of the WSJ through Jon Hilsenrath, and includes a full blown black-out period where no comments are allowed at all. What happened to the time when there was a Fed meeting, and sometimes unexpected things happened? Post-financial crisis, markets are viewed as fragile by policy makers. The extent to which markets are actually fragile is debatable,...

Since the BREXIT rebound/rip, it’s been an exceptionally stable summer. Few predicted that the unexpected BREXIT vote, would be an unequivocal positive to markets. The tell, quite clear after the fact, was the global rate plunge, and the US 10-year yield sinking to the 1.35% range, around the 4th of July. The perfect combination arose to send markets to all-time highs during the summer, a scary event (BREXIT) that lowered global rates, took the Fed off the table, and led to stimulus as far as the eye could see in Europe/elsewhere, all while not really impacting the US economy. As long as “lower-for-longer ” (interest rates), a BREXIT residual, remained in-play, volatility suppression reigned, and equities could grind higher. While the dynamic persisted all summer, it came undone the...